


Firebright

by ShadowSpires



Series: Countdown to Clone Wars 2020 [6]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, I didn't make it this far before I rage-quit the series sooo, Melida/Daan, Old!Empire!Cody goes waaaaaay back in time, Poor Cody needs a hug, gleaned from a friend's ranting, this references my vauge knowlege of the jedi apprentice series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22476517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: The weary soldier looks down at the little firebright cadet crouched warily before him, looking up at him with eyes like the Kaminoan sky in a lightning storm.He wonders which part of his past, riddled with holes and empty gaps, this little soldier belongs to. Wonders if he killed him himself, or just ordered it done.It must be one or the other. There is nothing but death behind or before him.
Series: Countdown to Clone Wars 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612177
Comments: 16
Kudos: 301





	Firebright

The weary soldier looks down at the little firebright cadet crouched warily before him, looking up at him with eyes like the Kaminoan sky in a lightning storm. The endless grey is shot through with greens and blues like the ferocious crash of thunder echoing the blinding turmoil in the sky.

No, not a cadet. Civilian: not vode. Civilians call their unfinished versions 'children.’ That doesn’t feel right either, though. The hand on the blaster the child has aimed dead center on the tired old soldier is steady, a kind of resigned determination on his face that is so very familiar.

He’s seen it in the faces of countless brothers, of civilians who became soldiers when they had no other choice, when the soldiers who were supposed to protect them were turned against them. 

He wonders which part of his past, riddled with holes and empty gaps, this little soldier belongs to. Wonders if he killed him himself, or just ordered it done.

It must be one or the other. There is nothing but death behind or before him.

The little soldier straightens warily when the older doesn’t move to threaten him. The old soldier simply keeps his hands loose at his sides, head cocked slightly as he tries to determine what this odd dream is telling him.

He sees the long strands of hair tucked back behind the little soldier’s ear, falling loose and wispy back over his shoulder like strands of bloody silk.

His mind tentatively asks “Commander?” but he rejects that idea, flinging it away violently before the grasping, greedy, violent little thing that lives in his head can latch onto it.

No.

No Commander would have let their braid get to that point. It is just an odd fashion statement. He’d known enough brothers to make incomprehensible choices about their looks that he isn’t going to question it. No lightsaber, he tells the twisty little voice in his brain. The one that doesn’t belong to him, but has been whispering poison into his mind for years nonetheless, fogging his thoughts, distorting his self.

“Who are you?” The little soldier asks, and the weary, shattered old soldier regards him calmly.

He is not a Jedi, to have dreams that tell the future, or speak to him in riddles about choices. His dreams are awash with blood and death, and hold no secrets from him, carry no cryptic messages. He knows what each one says. Failure  _ (to protect his men) _ , failure  _ (to protect his General), _ failure  _ (to kill the traitors) _ failure  _ (to defend the Republic, the Empire, the Republic —  _ **_what is he fighting for_ ** _?). _ Always fighting. Always blood. Even in that, this is no different. On a battlefield once again, and he can hear the explosions in the distance. And yet, it is different.

Right here, in front of him, there is an island of stillness even in all of that.

The island doesn’t ask easy questions.

He wonders what this dream is trying to tell him.

He wonders what he wants to say back.

Who is he. 

He almost tells the little soldier his number. His designation and batch, and the string of numbers that meant ‘him’ for the longest parts of his life. But. This little bright spark calls to the shards of brightness left within him, remaining from the brightest period, where he soaked in blood every day, but he still had brothers, still had friends, and Rex, and a General who respected him and trusted him, and they called him —

“Cody,” he says to the sunburst, the deep still lake, the little soldier. 

“Are you with the Old?” The little soldier asks sharply, commandingly, hand signaling sharply and the other children Cody has been ignoring around him, who have been hanging back, hands on their weapons, all ease forward slightly at his signal, emerging from cover that might have worked on a less experienced soldier.

Cody smiles a crooked little smile. Oh, but this little flame will be a commander to reckon with, someday. Cody knows, Cody can see it, was trained to recognize the spark of leadership even in the very young.

“What are the Old?” He asks, back. He is himself old, he can feel it in his bones, old before he was ever young, old before he got to live, but he gets the feeling that is not what this little dream-sprite wants to know.

There is a mutter that rises in the group, but a raised hand silences them, gently but firmly, and oh, but that is achingly familiar, and Cody has to still the slice of agony in his chest, the longing, the missing.

“You don’t know who the Old are,” muses the firebrand, eyes so sharp on him they could be blades, but they do not cut him.

“I don’t know who you are, either,” Cody says, letting a hint of reproval into his voice, the shade of, ‘I know you know better’ he hasn’t used since he was still on Kamino the first time, and the younger vode would do something stupid. There was no time for that relatively gentle teaching after they left home. “I gave you my name.”

Names have power. The Vode have always known that, since the first one named himself, declared with that action: I am a person, and I will not be ignored. Names of battles, names of wars. 

He fought in a war that bares his name. They call it the Clone Wars, and the irony is he never had a choice.

He wonders what name this dream bears. 

The dream looks at him, deep in places he hasn’t looked himself since Utapau, and an order he couldn’t refuse, aching places, bubbling with agony and festering guilt, and he resists the urge to look away, to shield the child from the darkness inside of him.

This is no child. He will not dishonor him so.

“My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the impossible dream tells him after a long moment, and somehow Cody isn’t even surprised.

The grasping voice in his head  _ screams,  _ howling, demanding he kill the traitor — but this is a dream. This is not  his General the traitor, just a strange, blood soaked dream, hazy and cracked at the edges, so Cody doesn’t have to listen. 

He doesn’t know what his brain is doing. What tortures this dream has in store for him, this dream of his General younger than he ever saw him, younger than Commander Tano was when she was first assigned to the 501st, if he has to guess. It’s so hard to tell, with nat-borns. 

“Of course,” Cody murmurs to the wary, determined echo of his General, traitor, friend. “How could you be anyone else?” 

If anyone could break the usual cycle of his dreams, blood-death-failure-orders-death, it would be this impossibility. Even dead, of course his General would find a way to make his existence interesting. 

“Do you know me?” The little general asks, frowning. He lowers the tip of his rifle, curiosity overriding wariness in a way that is  _ so achingly familiar. _

The irony of the question  _ aches. _ Once, they thought they knew each other better than they knew themselves. Turns out neither of them knew the most important thing about Cody. 

Still, it draws a tiny, cracking smile from Cody, just a wisp of amusement, but it’s something he hasn’t felt in years. 

“Not even in as strange a dream as this must be could I forget you, my General,” Cody says. Without his permission, the smile curls deeper, cutting the lines of his face into canyons, twisting around the fond words, the indulgent tone he hasn’t had cause to use in over a decade. 

The children around him murmur. His General’s brow knits, the rifle tip lowering more as he puzzles over something, eyeing Cody like he’s particularly fascinating. 

Familiar, familiar, familiar and warm, and so nostalgic for the beginning of the war, when his General had still had time for curiosity and questioning and his usual fascination with the galaxy. Cody can’t help the wash of contentment that trickles through him, slipping past even the long and hard held wariness, waiting for the twist in the dream, for the catch. 

“You’re dreaming?” Obi-Wan asks him, sounding puzzled. Cody raises an eyebrow at him, slow and a little derisive, but it’s…  _ teasing _ . Cody had thought he’d forgotten how to do that. 

Cody was about to ask him how  _ else _ he was standing in front of his dead Jedi General turned child, but instead he was turning, moving before he consciously registered the movement, eyes catching a flicker, hand going to his side for his blaster — and grasping empty air.

He crouched, cursing, eyes scanning for the glint of movement he’d caught from the corner of his eye. 

Of course. He couldn’t just have a  _ good _ dream. 

Caught on a battlefield again. 

Having no blaster did make for an interesting change from the usual — eventually even the most horrific dreams of looking down his blaster at people he had loved, or sworn to protect, and firing  _ anyway _ got a little old, the horror worn thin by repetition. 

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight even his dreams to make it stop. 

He’s never learned how to stop fighting, will never be allowed to until the day he dies. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr at shadow-spires!


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